Meanwhile, in hockey poetry

Do you ever get the feeling that sports reporting is a trifle overwrought? That sometimes it gets just a little bit boring and repetitive? No, me neither.

Still, I wonder whether the sports reporting powers that be have considered moving to a more concise form of explication—putting sports news into terse verse. With verse, you’ve got to wrap your lead into a few short lines and pack a kick in with it

Let’s give an example. Instead of saying that “Al Blodgins potted the first marker at 7:06 of the second period on a breakaway pass from Billl Smithers to give the Ambush the lead, only to see the Icehounds storm back short-handed to net the equalizer at 15:22 of the third; and then to nab the winner one minute into overtime on a blazing slapshot from the point that was tipped past Ambush goalie Ned Farnsworthy by big forward Tim Flanders for his eighth of the season,” wouldn’t it be better—even just once in a while—to state it all a little more poetically. Perhaps something like this:

The game was tied, so overtime
A winner would annoint
And Flanders tipped in number eight
On a slapshot from the point.

Now perhaps that is not the most sterling example I could have used, but you get the point. In fact, having taken a look at the first 10 days or so of the NHL playoffs and assoicated NHL news, I suggest that Bill Shakespeare or Bob Frost might have been handed some stories to rewrite, and would have come up with something better than the following:

No Boston, no Los Angeles
Ex-champions, both fell short
Oh well: they say that tiddleywinks
Is a halfway decent sport

Oh Jets! Oh Jets! What have you done—
Lost four straight to the Ducks
No way to sugarcoat this news
‘Cos simply put—it sucks!

A whisker got the Penguins in
They’d need Sid Crosby’s drive
But once they dropped the playoff puck
The Rangers won in five

Lightning, Wings, Blackhawks, Preds,
Isles, Caps, Wild and Blues
Each series went at least six games
So there wasn’t much to choose

The Sens fans thought that they had died
And then gone on to heaven
But luck ran out against the Habs
They couldn’t force game seven

Two western teams were head to head
The Flames and the Canucks
The Flames would bask in glory’s light
The other guys were schmucks

The Stanley Cup’s a vicious grind
To find out which team’s best
Who will make it?
I predict: One each from east and west

And in other hockey news:

The Oilers finished last—again
And draft pick first—again
Rewarded for incompetence, some say
They begin again—again

The Leafs cleaned house—the surest sign
Their team’s an empty vessel
What will they get—some broken sticks
For stars Phaneuf and Kessel?

I should emphasize that the foregoing is merely illustative of the possibilities inherent in poetic sports writing. I have only given this my usual 103.5 per cent, when the industry standard is 110 per cent or better. In fact, maybe I’ll just stop here and go on to the back of the paper where there is a column by James Hurst that reads much better than any of this poetry stuff.

DSIMMONDS@WELLINGTONTIMES.CA